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New Senate Polls: Udall, Coleman Lead

While the focus of the new battleground polls conducted for washingtonpost.com is rightly on the presidential race, there are also interesting data in them regarding Senate races in Minnesota and Colorado.

There's a bit of good news for each side as Sen. Norm Coleman (R) holds a 51 percent to 41 percent lead over entertainer and political commentator Al Franken in Minnesota while Rep. Mark Udall (D) leads former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R) 48 percent to 38 percent in the open seat Senate contest in Colorado.

Barack Obama leads John McCain in each state; the Illinois senator has a wide 54 percent to 37 percent edge in Minnesota and a slimmer 49 percent to 44 percent edge in Colorado.

Both Colorado and Minnesota are seen as among the most competitive Senate races in the country -- ranking third and ninth, respectively, on the most recent Line.

Colorado Senate Race

Minnesota Senate Race

The results in Minnesota are particular noteworthy.

Despite the fact that Obama leads in the state by 17 points, Coleman has a double digit lead as well. And, just as Obama's overall edge is built on his 21 point advantage over McCain among independent voters so too is Coleman's lead dependent on the 20 point lead he carries over Franken among independents.

But, unlike the presidential contest where partisans are tending to side with their party's candidate in large numbers, Franken appears to be struggling somewhat to convince Democrats to line up behind him. Nearly one in five Democrats (17 percent) defected to Coleman in the Quinnipiac poll, a far larger number than the four percent of Republicans switching sides to support Franken.

Have the developments of the last several months taken Minnesota off the table as a target? Absolutely not. Obama's sizeable edge in the state means Franken should get a boost from the top of the ticket and Coleman still has much work to do to prove to voters he is something more than a rubberstamp for an unpopular president.

But, what the polling in Minnesota shows is that candidates -- and the campaigns they run -- still matter, no matter what the political environment looks like.

Politico posted a link to the Federal Papers filed in Federal Court in Chicago linking Obama to the $112,000 transaction in the Tony Rezko Federal Corruption Trial - apparently in the $112,000 transactions $10,000 of that amount was Obama's cut and the $10,000 found its way into Obama's Campaign Treasury.

Politico posted a link to the Federal Papers filed in Federal Court in Chicago linking Obama to the $112,000 transaction in the Tony Rezko Federal Corruption Trial - apparently in the $112,000 transactions $10,000 of that amount was Obama's cut and the $10,000 found its way into Obama's Campaign Treasury.

Barack Obama's name could have been invoked more at the corruption trial of his former fund-raiser Tony Rezko.

But it appears prosecutors opted against bringing Obama into the mix during the two-month trial.

Newly unsealed documents show that prosecutors sought to call witnesses to testify about Rezko's ties to Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

The Illinois senator was the recipient of "straw" campaign contributions made by others on behalf of Rezko -- money that Obama has since given to charities.

The documents indicate that prosecutors considered offering witnesses to explore why Rezko used others to contribute to Obama and also to Blagojevich, and U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve ruled that they could. But they did not end up offering any such testimony during the trial.

"Witnesses will testify that Rezko was a long-standing supporter and fund-raiser of Barack Obama," prosecutors wrote.

Later, St. Eve ruled that Obama references would be allowed into the trial, but prosecutors apparently opted not to invoke Obama's name.

Barack Obama's name could have been invoked more at the corruption trial of his former fund-raiser Tony Rezko.

But it appears prosecutors opted against bringing Obama into the mix during the two-month trial.

Newly unsealed documents show that prosecutors sought to call witnesses to testify about Rezko's ties to Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

The Illinois senator was the recipient of "straw" campaign contributions made by others on behalf of Rezko -- money that Obama has since given to charities.

The documents indicate that prosecutors considered offering witnesses to explore why Rezko used others to contribute to Obama and also to Blagojevich, and U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve ruled that they could. But they did not end up offering any such testimony during the trial.

"Witnesses will testify that Rezko was a long-standing supporter and fund-raiser of Barack Obama," prosecutors wrote.

Later, St. Eve ruled that Obama references would be allowed into the trial, but prosecutors apparently opted not to invoke Obama's name.

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger reaches back into the history of the Democratic Party and describes the tradition of war-making and expansionism that Barack Obama has now left little doubt he will honour.

In 1941, the editor Edward Dowling wrote: "The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it." What has changed? The terror of the rich is greater than ever, and the poor have passed on their delusion to those who believe that when George W Bush finally steps down next January, his numerous threats to the rest of humanity will diminish.

The foregone nomination of Barack Obama, which, according to one breathless commentator, "marks a truly exciting and historic moment in US history", is a product of the new delusion. Actually, it just seems new. Truly exciting and historic moments have been fabricated around US presidential campaigns for as long as I can recall, generating what can only be described as B.S. on a grand scale. Race, gender, appearance, body language, rictal spouses and offspring, even bursts of tragic grandeur, are all subsumed by marketing and "image-making", now magnified by "virtual" technology. Thanks to an undemocratic electoral college system (or, in Bush's case, tampered voting machines) only those who both control and obey the system can win. This has been the case since the truly historic and exciting victory of Harry Truman, the liberal Democrat said to be a humble man of the people, who went on to show how tough he was by obliterating two cities with the atomic bomb.

Understanding Obama as a likely president of the United States is not possible without understanding the demands of an essentially unchanged system of power: in effect a great media game. For example, since I compared Obama with Robert Kennedy in these pages, he has made two important statements, the implications of which have not been allowed to intrude on the celebrations. The first was at the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Zionist lobby, which, as Ian Williams has pointed out, "will get you accused of anti-Semitism if you quote its own website about its power". Obama had already offered his genuflection, but on 4 June went further. He promised to support an "undivided Jerusalem" as Israel's capital. Not a single government on earth supports the Israeli annexation of all of Jerusalem, including the Bush regime, which recognises the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international city.

His second statement, largely ignored, was made in Miami on 23 May. Speaking to the expatriate Cuban community - which over the years has faithfully produced terrorists, assassins and drug runners for US administrations - Obama promised to continue a 47-year crippling embargo on Cuba that has been declared illegal by the UN year after year.

Again, Obama went further than Bush. He said the United States had "lost Latin America". He described the democratically elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a "vacuum" to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America, and he endorsed Colombia's "right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders". Translated, this means the "right" of a regime, whose president and leading politicians are linked to death squads, to invade its neighbours on behalf of Washington. He also endorsed the so-called Merida Initiative, which Amnesty International and others have condemned as the US bringing the "Colombian solution" to Mexico. He did not stop there. "We must press further south as well," he said. Not even Bush has said that.

It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will be. Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition, as the war-making of presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton demonstrates. Obama's difference may be that he feels an even greater need to show how tough he is. However much the colour of his skin draws out both racists and supporters, it is otherwise irrelevant to the great power game. The "truly exciting and historic moment in US history" will only occur when the game itself is challenged.

I'm gonna state the obvious, here. It's irresponsible to report trends based on a single poll. Quinnipiac shows Coleman up by 10 points, yet only 2 weeks ago Rasmussen had Coleman up by only 2 points. In New Jersey, earlier this month, Rasmussen had Lautenberg leading Zimmer by only 1 point. Sure enough, two weeks later, Fairleigh Dickinson has Lautenberg up by a stunning 17 points.

Everyone's free to start his or her own polling business, but maybe maybe maybe there are just too many pollsters out there?

"But perhaps the key factor among them all is that independents, who make up 31 percent of all Minnesotans, favor Obama over McCain by a crushing 55-38 percent, while they favor Coleman by an even bigger 55-35 percent margin. If Franken doesn't figure out how to appeal to independents, he will be toast."

p.s. SlingBlade- Franken's in hot water for writing a fiction piece for Playboy, not for an interview.

The DFL really screwed the pooch with the Franken nomination. Beating Coleman should be a cynch, but they nominated the guy that can be portrayed as a crass carpetbagging hollywood elite who's out of touch with MN voters & values. What were they thinking? Perhaps Ventura will jump in - with one more act in a ring, the circus will be complete.
Posted by: bsimon | June 27, 2008 11:06 AM

Absolutely right. The DFL seems to have really managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of almost inevitable victory, again.

How can MN voters possibly support another Bush enabler like Coleman? Does a voting record count for nothing? If so, the Senator counts for nothing. Norm Coleman has been an anchor retarding progress during his term which should be ended forever.

The DFL really screwed the pooch with the Franken nomination. Beating Coleman should be a cynch, but they nominated the guy that can be portrayed as a crass carpetbagging hollywood elite who's out of touch with MN voters & values. What were they thinking? Perhaps Ventura will jump in - with one more act in a ring, the circus will be complete.

We continue to talk about writings from almost a decade ago and someone's personal mutual funds which have nothing to do with anything.

Ask yourself this, What has Coleman done for Minnesota? He sure has done alot for the Bushies, Oil Companies, the War Contractors, and Big Pharma. They all continue to line their pockets at our expense.

Meanwhile Coleman wants to distract us by looking at Al Franken's mutual funds which have nothing to do with Minnesotans, have no affect on us as Minnesotans, do not affect our taxes in any way, and make no difference to us in anyway. It is a complete bait and switch tatic by the Republicans.

All while our hard earned tax dollars continue to go into the pockets of Oil companies, Big Pharma, and all of Bush's buddies.

The new slogan: McCain, man of character.
Hmm. Let's see if that gets examined by the NeoNut Post after Broder, Cohen and Kraut have run the McCain slogan just before it was officially released by Rove this week.
McCain, so much character that he lies about "refusing to be released" from Vietnam. Not only is that absurd on its face -- the Vietnamese, holding him, were just too weak to let the hero go? You mean they couldn't have dumped him with the Swiss or Red Cross? When will some "journalist" with integrity look into this bs fable? And also get a copy of the film McCain made attacking our great country?
Next, of course, is McCain the womanizer and brutal coward toward those around him. Violent outbursts and affairs and worse with subordinates ended his military career. He calls his own wife a "cun*" and whor* and thinks any woman in her right mind would vote for him? When will this truth get out?
If Rove and guys who take GOP cruises are the remaining supporters for one of the worst hacks ever to run people should think massive sweep come November.

The Slimy Fish Obama flip flopping again on the issue - how could that happen ???

Really ???

I really do not believe that the Slimy Fish Obama would attempt to flip-flop again on a major issue.

What is this 3 times in one week ????

Chris are you paying attention or are we just playing games here and pretending not to notice ???? The media has to call Obama on this. This is one major reason the press has met its downfall - when something like this happens, the press LOVES to ignore solid stories like the Slimy Fish Obama flip flopping again.

The Slimy Fish Obama flip flopping again on the issue - how could that happen ???

Really ???

I really do not believe that the Slimy Fish Obama would attempt to flip-flop again on a major issue.

What is this 3 times in one week ????

Chris are you paying attention or are we just playing games here and pretending not to notice ???? The media has to call Obama on this. This is one major reason the press has met its downfall - when something like this happens, the press LOVES to ignore solid stories like the Slimy Fish Obama flip flopping again.

Oh my. Although Ventura is almost certainly the most viable third-party (potential) candidate, given how truly unpopular he was at the end of his governorship and the numerous controversies he generated ("Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people..."), he has zero chance of actually being elected a senator.

In a close race between Franken and Colemen, Ventura could serve as a Ralph Nader-like spoiler figure. Granted, it doesn't look all that close right now, but Ventura's "base" has always been younger college voters who would likely vote for Franken.

Going through all of the Fix's posts for the last 2 days, I'm shocked that I can't find one single story on the FISA bill and the destruction of the rule of law. Why is that? Isn't it important enough to mention that Congress voted to give the telecoms immunity for their warrantless wiretapping of every phone call, e-mail and text message made in the US? This is why main stream news is seen in a poor light. No real investigative reporting gets done. Political talk shows have one nut from the right and one nut from the left to argue over an issue, but nobody is there to represent the truth. The media failed us since 2001 and the Congress has as well. we need new media as well as new political parties. The whole system has become a sham.

Hey CC, didn't I tell you you let your lunch with Bob Schaffer in DC influence you a little too much? He was never anything more than a place-filler, a good R soldier getting the thrill of a lifetime by even being allowed to run for the Senate. Udall in a walk. (and in CO-4, Musgrave losing this time too...Colorado seems to be zooming past purple to deep cobalt blue)

With Colorado becoming a strong Democratic state I have decided to stay home in Texas this cycle (Obama, Udall and Markley will all take their races). The latest poll only show McCain up by 5% in Texas. With John Cornyn only up 2% in the Senate race I think a big play can me made here in Texas. Paul Burka a veteran political analyst with Texas monthly and admirer of Bush when he was the Texas governor predicted earlier this year that the Republicans would take Texas in 08 but would be in trouble in 2012 because of the changing demographics. With Rick Noriega in the Senate race we are seeing an opportunity to take Texas with an aggressive voter registration campaign. You combine this with a lack of Republican enthusiasm for their ticket. We are starting to organize now for our September Voter registration drive and drive voters to the polls in October and November.

Maybe we will not win here but I saw my unsuccessful efforts in the Colorado 4th help elect Democrats in other House seats arround the Country. McCain better get down here and play defense.